Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series

by Virginia McClain

  “And if you’re me… how do you know anything that I don’t already know?”

  “Oooh! That’s a good one. The answer is that I’m a dragon. Which is to say, you’re at least part dragon. And I don’t know anything that you don’t technically know.”

  “What?”

  Dragon-me stared at human-me and blinked her giant, green eyes.

  “You know everything I do, technically, but dragon brains and human brains don’t work the same way, so it would be difficult for you to know the things that I know when you aren’t in dragon form.”

  “And how on earth do you know things that I don’t know regardless of what form you’re in? Were you… did you…” I swallowed, feeling suddenly ill. “Did I steal a dragon when I—”

  “No, no. Good heavens no. Nothing like that. I’m a part of you, accessed through your well of dark matter and a bit of epigenetic gymnastics. You didn’t steal an already existing dragon, but… dragons, even weredragons, are a bit of an odd case in the grand scheme of things. Dragons have very large brains, and cerebral matter that is unlike that of any other creature’s. It grants us a few advantages. For one, we have genetic memory. Very strong genetic memory, unlike most species, so we keep all the knowledge of our species alive even without an oral or written history (though of course we have those as well). Full dragons are born knowing everything that every single one of their ancestors knew. They are born with dozens, or hundreds, of lives in their memories. Weredragons only get a sort of distilled version of that, since they originally come from a human and dragon pairing up while the dragon is in its human form. But even that little bit of human DNA makes the genetic memory less detailed than a full dragon’s memory, since half or more of their ancestors don’t have the genetic memory to fill in the blanks. And whatever memories they have, they can only access them when they’re in dragon form.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So… because you’re currently in our dragon form, you know that stuff, but I don’t?”

  “Well, in this space you might actually be able to access my genetic memory without me being in dragon form, but it might be difficult to visualize, and it’s hard to look for something you don’t know you have. Since you wished for company, and then company that could talk, here we are.”

  “MY HEAD HURTS, and it’s not from trying to shift myself out of here,” I muttered.

  Dragon-me looked completely nonplussed, inasmuch as I could distinguish facial expressions on her scaled mien, and feline-me let out a low noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

  “What?” I asked, glancing between the two of them.

  “Aren’t you concerned about the fact that shifting out of here didn’t work?” dragon-me asked.

  I didn’t like her tone. It was far too cautious. Like she was worried she’d hurt me if she spoke any louder.

  “Of course I am. Weren’t you there for the near panic attack I had? What’s your point?”

  I sounded too shrill even to my own ears, but I couldn’t help it. Just bringing it up again made me feel jittery.

  “It shouldn’t be possible for you to be here,” dragon-me said, lending an extra calm to her voice that had the opposite effect than she was probably going for. “All three of us being here means there is no part of your consciousness outside of this space, and thus no tether to shift back with.”

  “Does that mean that all three of us are actually separate parts of my consciousness?” I asked, wondering if what I actually had was a multiple personality disorder.

  Feline-me growled at that suggestion.

  “Look, as far as I can tell, our situation here is unique,” dragon-me offered. “No dragon in our ancestry had a clear understanding of how dark matter pockets worked, because most of our ancestors were more of the “magic is magic” mindset. But even the one draconic scientist whose genetic memory I possess was never able to access her own dark matter pocket, even after she’d theorized that it existed. She actually tried, of course, scientist that she was, but she only managed to bring out her human form or send it away. She never managed to travel to the pocket herself. Which, of course, only cemented her hypothesis.”

  “Which was?”

  “Her hypothesis? That it was impossible to access one’s own dimensional pocket. All her research confirmed it.”

  “Yeah, well, I doubt any of her test subjects had access to Gwen-given powers.”

  “True. I’ve never heard of anyone pulling people through time and space the way Gwen does, or the way that you do.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think that much of it—I mean aside from thinking it was badass—until Torrence started explaining how mages jump through time and space.”

  I sighed, almost feeling queasy at the memory of how stitching multiple pocket dimensions together had made Sol throw up. Then I sat up abruptly, as an idea came to me.

  “What if I tried it the old fashioned mage way?”

  Dragon-me blinked a few times.

  “I don’t know why that would work when the Gwen-given shift doesn’t. If anything, it’s just more complicated and—”

  “I have to at least try,” I interrupted.

  Dragon-me didn’t argue, but the look in her giant reptilian eyes wasn’t exactly encouraging.

  I closed my eyes, reaching for a nearby pocket dimension, and… and realized I had no idea what pocket dimension paralleled the dragon realm. Or anywhere. Or how I was supposed to reach for a pocket dimension rather than just reaching for the place I was trying to go.

  “I believe it takes mages years of practice and study before they can shift through multiple planes,” dragon-me explained.

  I sighed, my headache returning with a vengeance.

  “And I doubt you’d be able to shift away from here that way even if you’d had years of practice. After all, this pocket dimension lies within you. Without a piece of your soul anchoring you to the world, you have no tether to follow. No way to—”

  “Wait. What did you say?” I asked.

  “I said—”

  “Never mind, I know what you said.”

  I hated to be rude, but my brain had finally caught up with what my ears had processed.

  “Anchor, tether, soul,” I mumbled.

  Then I closed my eyes and searched my soul. I wasn’t sure I really believed in a soul, as such. Agnosticism was about as far as my spirituality had ever gone, and I was pretty firmly in the atheism camp these days, but if dark matter had taught me anything, it was that there was more to human life that our current science could fully explain. I didn’t doubt that we’d get there with time, but…let’s just say, I was more open to ideas that didn’t meet with current scientific scrutiny at the moment. So I closed my eyes and tried to visualize what my spirit might look like, if I could see it. At first I pictured a semitransparent version of me, but that just made me think of low-end special effects from the 90s, so I decided to switch tactics. I pictured a glowing green sphere instead, one that matched the color of my eyes in all three of my forms. Didn’t someone once say that eyes were windows to the soul? So I went with that. When I pictured the glowing green ball of energy at my core, I searched it for the various tethers I might have to the place I wanted to return. I found three of them. Two were tiny, new, and barely large enough to notice. Some instinct told me they wouldn’t help me get anywhere. But the third one was at least a third of the size of the whole ball. It was large, and bright, and I knew exactly who it led to.

  I also knew that I wasn’t going to be able to use it unless I forgave him. The whole reason I was here was that I’d been so distraught at the idea of my brother keeping secrets from me, namely the secret that our parents were both alive and in touch with him, that I’d felt a need to run away so strong that I hadn’t even picked a place to run away to. I’d wound up here instead. The thought still rankled, but I took a few deep breaths and tried to think about things from Trev’s perspective. Then I realized that I didn’t even kn
ow what Trev’s perspective was. I hadn’t given him a chance to explain. I’d just felt hurt, hopeless, and bitter, then reached into the void. That was hardly Trev’s fault. I owed him a chance to explain himself. I owed him enough empathy to try to understand why he hadn’t told me our parents were alive. And even if I didn’t owe it to him, I didn’t want to withhold it. I wanted my twin back. We’d been separated for so damned long, for reasons out of our control, and now I was voluntarily walking away from him, just because he’d done something I didn’t understand.

  That didn’t feel right.

  That felt awful.

  In that instant, I wanted nothing more than to be by my brother’s side.

  And then I was.

  I LOOKED UP and found myself staring straight into Trevor’s eyes. The hurt in them, the fear, made me look down at my own body just to be sure that I was actually in one piece.

  I looked reassuringly whole.

  “Vic?” asked Trev and Sol, at the same time.

  I looked between them, and realized, with more than a little bit of shock, that they were standing exactly where I’d left them. We were all standing in a field full of dragons preparing for war, the grass was thick beneath my feet and the sky shone clear and blue above us. Azrael was still off a ways discussing Gwen knew what with General Aira, and I was standing encircled by all of the people that I’d held most dear. Standing in the exact spot I’d tried to will myself back to a hundred times from that little dimensional pocket. Standing in front of all of the people I’d tried to will myself back to. But the only one I’d been able to reach had been Trev. People said a lot of weird shit about twins and the ties that bind them. I’d always thought some of it was true. After all, Trev and I had spent the past three weeks communicating mind to mind, but…well, maybe more of it was true than I’d thought.

  “Well, shit,” I said, trying to will my legs to continue to hold me, even though they both felt like poorly formed jello. “How long was I gone?”

  Sol, Rhelia, Trev, and Seamus all exchanged glances.

  “You did not go anywhere,” Rhelia said cautiously.

  “It kind of looked like you shifted,” Seamus admitted. “But at the end of the shift, it was still you, in human form, albeit in different clothes.”

  I looked down again and barely registered that I was still wearing galaxy leggings and my nerdiest t-shirt.

  “You’re saying that no time has passed?” I asked, feeling the same headache that had been plaguing me ever since I got to the dimensional pocket coming on once more. Everyone shook their heads.

  “You ssssaid, ‘You knew they were there. Thissss whole time. You knew.’ And then you ssssort of phassssed in and out, and now you don’t look quite well,” said Rhelia, in a matter-of-fact tone.

  I nodded, thinking that my life was one of the most ridiculous strings of events I’d ever heard of—causing me to wonder briefly if the author of my story actually existed, and if so, if she got paid very well—and then I promptly passed the fuck out.

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes next, I was gazing into the bright silver gaze of the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. I had to blink a few times to realize that it was Az.

  Their face was close enough that I could feel their breath on my lips, which felt warm and wet—as if they’d just been kissed. I was somewhat startled to find my arms wrapped enthusiastically around Az’s neck. “What happened?” I breathed.

  Every fiber of me positively buzzed with the need to continue whatever Az had started. My brain felt muddled, but the headache was gone, and my vision was quite a bit sharper than it had been just before I’d passed out. Sharp enough that I could make out the dragon army still marshaling for war around us, along with my friends standing much closer and looking far more concerned than I would have expected.

  “You passed out, Luv. I caught you before you planted your face in the mud, and did what I could to transfer you a bit of energy. Didn’t want to do too much, since you weren’t awake and I like my partners consenting, but I figured you’d prefer it to sleeping for the next three days. Though that’s still an option, if you choose not to seal the deal.”

  Az winked, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to punch them or kiss them again.

  I decided instead to just push myself out of their embrace.

  “Hang on, Luv, you probably don’t have enough—”

  Az didn’t get to finish whatever they were saying before I’d pushed myself out of their arms and promptly found myself in a heap on the ground.

  “Ouch,” I muttered.

  “I didn’t give you much energy. Like I said, I wanted your consent. So I figured if I gave you enough of a boost to wake you up, we could talk, and you’d be in a better state of mind to say whether or not you’d like my help.”

  I tried to get up off the ground, but found myself completely unable to move. I could twitch, at least. Enough to let me know that I wasn’t paralyzed, but it was as if all of my muscles had shorted somehow, and there was no more strength in any part of my body.

  “The fastest way to heal you up would be to get completely intimate, but I remember you expressing your doubts about my trustworthiness as a succubus the last time that came up, so I rather thought you’d appreciate a discussion first.”

  “How does me letting you steal my soul help me, exactly?” I asked, baffled, from my prone spot on the downtrodden muddy grass.

  “It’s not stealing your soul. Well, it can be, if I’m using myself as a weapon, but a real exchange is precisely that—an exchange. It’s give and take, and we’d both benefit from it.”

  I thought of the glowing green ball I’d just discovered while locked in my own dimensional pocket; the idea of siphoning off a portion of that glow to give to Azrael, even in exchange for some super-duper energy boost, did not particularly appeal. I cringed from where I lay, wondering why none of my other friends were coming to my aid.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “I’m just going to shift to Life’s glade and get him to heal me up.”

  I closed my eyes and pulled on space and time, barely hearing the cries of “Vic, no!” from around me, as darkness reached up and snatched me from the living.

  I REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS in a darkened room, surrounded with low-burning, spice-scented candles, and some soft orchestral music playing in the background.

  Then I heard the shuffling of feathers, and my gaze caught on a set of glinting silver eyes very close to my own.

  “Why have I never noticed that your eyes are silver?” I asked, feeling a surge of guilt as well as wonder. Az’s eyes were the most startling metallic silver I’d ever seen, and they practically glowed in contrast with their ebon skin. I leaned back, putting a bit more distance between us, and took in Az’s hair. It was all white, in a glorious set of braids that fell well past their silver wings, all the way to their waist.

  “It’s part of my magic, Luv. Difficult to blend into the human population like this, even if I hide my wings. So, I sort of repel the gaze from my eyes, hair, wings, and ears.”

  “Ears?”

  And then it was like my eyes finally registered the entirety of Az’s face. Their ears were ever-so-slightly pointed, nothing like the dagger tips of the few elves I’d met, but pointed enough not to pass for human. I stared at Az and realized that, while I’d already considered them to be possibly the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, the eyes, hair, and ears took things to an ethereal level. I wasn’t much for biblical literature, but I thought maybe I understood where the concept of angels had come from.

  “Why can I see you properly now?” I asked, mesmerized.

  “We’re alone, and I’m rather interested in having you see me as I really am, at the moment. I’m sorry for kissing you without your consent, but I couldn’t get your consent when you were unconscious, and I wanted you awake and alive to either rip me to shreds or accept my proposal. If we weren’t about to go to war, I’d never have done even that much without your enthusiastic agreement.�
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  Az stood up then, and as I focused on the rest of their body, my pulse quickened. My body was enthusiastically prepared to consent to anything Az wanted. They were wearing a gorgeous emerald green brocade corset with black edging and some light-absorbing gems studded periodically around the edging. The corset was gorgeous, but it alone wouldn’t have stolen my breath away, even coupled with the supple leather pants that hugged tight to Azrael’s legs. It was the fact that I could see both of Az’s forms, and that they both wore the same outfit—though it was clearly tailored to suit their very different figures. The overlap made me dizzy, as usual, but I closed my eyes and focused my mind for a moment before opening them again.

  I’d never seen a man in a corset before.

  Az was gorgeous in both forms, and I obviously had a difficult time deciding a preference, as evidenced by how often I saw both of them, but I really wanted a moment to savor the novelty of the male corset before I went back to seeing double, or maybe just enjoying the female aspect. I swallowed, desire pulsing through my body, and then winced when I realized that my body was in an almost overwhelming amount of pain. The fact that I could feel any desire at all in that moment spoke to Az’s powers as a succubus.

  “You look awful, Luv,” Az said, from the spot where they now stood encircled in candlelight. I blinked as my vision shifted and I saw both of them again. Apparently, it took more energy than I had to keep them separate.

  “Thanks. Wish I could say the same about you,” I wheezed, letting my head fall back against the pillow behind me. That was the first moment I noticed that I was in a bed. I could feel the scarring on my neck, face, and arm pull tight as I tried to lower myself into the mattress, and the reminder of their presence did nothing for my self esteem, but I tried to brush the thought away.

  “I thought you wanted my consent,” I added, feeling a bit salty about having been placed in a bed surrounded by candles, even as I let my eyes close against the pain.